There is alas just time for a final B Road before Christmas. It joins Hackney to Hackney Wick and 200 years ago would first have followed a country lane, then a babbling brook. The lane's still recognisable but the brook is long gone and its meadows despoiled... by precisely what, we're about to find out.
The B113 starts in the heart of Hackney on Mare Street, quite near the Town Hall and almost opposite the Hackney Empire. It bears off between Foxtons and the Citizens Advice Bureau at a major set of traffic lights and heads east along what has always been Morning Lane. Once there'd have been watercress beds on one side and orchards on the other but the modern reality is a supermarket car park and flats, with a stream of vehicles queueing inbetween. Some of that queueing is to enter Valette Street, a gloomy shortcut round the back of the Hackney Picturehouse, because the B113 turns out to be a messy creature with more than one additional one-way arm.
The first parade of shops is blessed with a lot of pavement, which means patrons of Dilara's cafe can sit out front nursing hot drinks even in December. The Globe has been under the same management for 30 years and prominently advertises the peculiar claim that it's Considered by many as "A Proper Hackney pub". Mama's Jerk isn't afraid to disgorge a Deliveroo rider before ten in the morning. Dry cleaning and halal butchery are also available but nobody bothers selling groceries because the enormous Tesco opposite has the monopoly. Naturally plans now exist to demolish it and build 450 insufficiently-affordable homes instead, but only once a smaller store has been built on the western half of the car park.
Coming up next is Hackney's disastrous designer outlet village, Hackney Walk. Five years ago, in an attempt to piggyback on the success of the Burberry factory shop across the road, a dozen arches in the railway viaduct were given a blingy gold makeover and made available to top fashion brands. Today every single one of these units has beenvacated due to (pre-pandemic) lack of interest and only the flagship Nike store nearer the road still trades. Aquascutum's separate outlet sold out last year, the Pringle store is currently being refitted as a furniture warehouse and this utter waste of public money is what happens when councillors and Network Rail totally misjudge how willing sassy shoppers are to travel to E9.
Imagine the Hackney Brook flowing where the Overground now runs and Morning Lane curving to one side, although it's hard when the modern replacement is flats, billboards, the odd shuttered takeaway and a four lane road. Steel yourself for a lot of substantial blocks of flats in what follows. Oddly-named premises beside the Homerton turn-off include The Glove That Fits (formerly a pub, now a nightclub) and Cardinal Pole (very much a Catholic secondary school). Eventually the wall of municipal properties makes way for a crescent parade at the top of Well Street, where you can tell the Quality Cafe is old school because it still advertises Sandwiches, Salads and Jacket Potatoes across its windows. And then the B113 branches again.
The next stretch along Wick Road used to be one-way (in the opposite direction) so traffic heading east was sent via Kenton Road instead. This therefore earned a B Road classification which it may still have or which may now have been whipped away for being superfluous, it's nigh impossible to tell. Kenton Road is lovely, especially now it's quieter, lined by exactly the kind of early Victorian terraces the road has thus far lacked. One house is currently over-decorated for Christmas with an inflatable arch and illuminated snowmen out front while another has a slew of vinyl albums nailed to its shed. But the pride of the road is The Kenton, a mustard-coloured multiple winner of Time Out's London Pub Of The Year, which also boasts a moose's head on the wall and a chirpy Norwegian landlord.
Wick Road, by contrast, is full-on postwar council estate. It starts with four genuine tower blocks and continues with barrier flats and multiple slab blocks for a good half mile. A couple of street-corner Victorian boozers provide brief architectural respite, although only one remains open and the other awaits resuscitation by having nine new apartments bolted onto the back. If you fancy karaoke with Costas, keep your fingers crossed for Thursdays after Christmas. The road's two cycle lanes occasionally peter out and merge with the pavement. For those who like to know which bus route we're following it's the 30 all the way. For those who like to know which river we're following it's still the Hackney Brook, its water meadows entirely transformed into this mundane residential corridor.
And so to Hackney Wick and what's plainly The Tiger pub, as has been self-evident since its exterior was aerosoled with stripes in 2017. This overlooks a fiveway junction where the A102 and A106 meet, hence there's considerable traffic and the only quiet arm veers off to the right up Brookfield Road. This used to be the one-way A106 and is now the other-way B113 thanks to a gyratory removal scheme, a downgrade which must have delighted the residents of its gorgeous villas. I'm not even sure why it's still a B road, given not a single car drove past as I walked down to the edge of Victoria Park, but it must be the nicest segment of the B113 to live on.
The B113 originally continued through Hackney Wick and onwards down White Post Lane into what's now the Olympic Park, then followed Carpenters Road as far as Stratford High Street. This eastern end spent only ten years as a B Road before being upgraded to become the A115, and in 2010 was totally declassified when Olympic roadworks made it redundant. As this is probably the area of London I've most overblogged during the last 20 years I don't think you're really missing out.
In good news there's no longer a B114, B115, B116 or B117, so that's four further posts avoided.
» The B114 ran through very similar territory to the B113. It started on Kenworthy Road (which is now the A102), passed through Hackney Wick, ran down the eastern side of Victoria Park (along Cadogan Terrace, inner London's only single track road with passing places), then followed Wick Lane to Old Ford. It was 1 mile long.
» The B115 is today's A106. It ran from Hackney (north of Victoria Park) to Hackney Wick, then across the Lea at Temple Mills through Leyton and onwards (via Grove Green Road) to Leytonstone. It earned its A road classification in the 1920s when Eastern Avenue opened to carry the A12. It was 4 miles long.
» The B116 was a piddly short connector joining the B113 to the B114 to the east of Victoria Park. Not only was it only 125 yards long but almost all of it was destroyed when the A102(M) carved straight through. All that's left is Cadogan Close, the stumpy cul-de-sac opposite the park's Cadogan Gate. Today's footbridge across the A12 marks pretty much the full extent.
» The B117 was the original classification given to the road through the centre of Victoria Park. It started to the north (along Lauriston Road) and continued south across the canal to Mile End (along Grove Road). It was renumbered in the 1970s to become part of the A1205. It was 1 mile long.
• In bad news all of those are really local to me so would have been dead easy to research (and in the case of the B116 incredibly quick to write).
• In good news the B118 is even closer to home and, given I've just mentioned B roads to the north, east and west of Victoria Park, you can probably guess where it's going to be.
